Shannon Kellogg

Well, it’s official. The White House announced this morning that internationally-known computer security expert Howard Schmidt will be the new Cyber Coordinator.

Well, the old saying – “it’s better late than never” – definitely applies to what the U.S. House of Representatives accomplished on December 8th: the Congress finally passed a bill that would establish baseline data security requirements for organizations that have PII and federal standards for breach notification.

Organizations everywhere have been rapidly adopting the use of social networking tools over the last couple of years and recent data suggests that the use of these tools has exploded exponentially in enterprises during the last six months of 2009. For more on that phenomenon, see this recent story in Government Computer News. During its first year, the Obama Administration has encouraged the adoption of social networking tools by federal government agencies to help increase information sharing, improve collaboration, and foster more transparency in government.

It's true. Mischel Kwon has resigned from her post of Director of the U.S. CERT at the Department of Homeland Security. A significant loss for the Department will be a major gain for RSA, The Security Division of EMC, as Mischel is a talented, hard working senior security professional with experience in both the public and private sectors. We are delighted to have her join our company as a member of the RSA/EMC team.

I wrote in two blog posts last October that the U.S. government and other nations around the world are focusing more attention on product security and technology supply chain issues. In my blog on October 14, 2008 I stated: “Government buyers nearly everywhere are insisting on more secure products and some level of assurance that the software or hardware that you are selling them is secure.”

It is vitally important to national security and economic security that President Barak Obama fulfills a pledge that he made on the campaign trail concerning the security of our nation’s information infrastructure.  During the 2008 presidential campaign, Mr. Obama compared cyber security threats with other 21st century national security challenges such as biological and nuclear weapons.  He said at the time that he would declare the country’s critical infrastructure a national asset and that he would appoint a cyber advisor that would report directly to him.

The heightened focus on cyber security and cyber crime issues in Washington, D.C. continued today with a hearing in the House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee.  Entitled “Do the Payment Card Industry Data Standards Reduce Cybercrime,” the hearing was convened by the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats, Cyber Security, and Science and Technology, which is chaired by U.S. Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-NY).  

Well, it’s that time of year again: lots of prognosticators making predictions for 2009 as they take a look at 2008 in the rearview mirror and try to figure out what’s in front of us in the New Year. So, I’ll join the legions of IT experts guessing what may be in store in the coming months as we raise our glasses to 08 and toast 09 with anticipation, hope and given the current economic climate, with consternation as well. Since I am a creature of Washington and have the opportunity to work with the U.S. Congress, I’ll focus on what steps we might expect our national legislature to take in 2009 as it relates to information security and privacy issues.